Best Pulp songs

A selection of their finest, because I'm on a writing kick and real life is boring.

In keeping with the spirit of things, I've added a prosaically titled 'sex rating' for the horndogs amongst you. As fellow Britpopster Phil Daniels might say, "you love a bit of it."

Sheffield: Sex City: Like the Serge Gainsbourg of South Yorkshire, Jarvis shrieks and purrs his way through eight muggy minutes, as keyboardist Candida rambles on about "the sound of people fucking". Essentially, it's the precursor to Acrylic Afternoons: coated in lust and attuned to the heat in the humdrum, but without all those bits about the tea.
Sex rating: 5/5. It's a bit naughty. 

Party Hard: Better than any song with a robot filter has the right to be and forever danceable. While the guitars are reminiscent of Wish-era Cure, the vocal is all Bowie: deep, talky and impossibly alluring. Never a bad thing.
Sex rating: 3/5. It's not exactly spilling over with sauce, but it does feature the line, "he just shed his load on your best party frock." Well, it's raunchier than anything else in the Britpop canon.

Cocaine Socialism: I'm too young to remember the 90s in any detail (it starts and stops at jelly sandals for me), but even I can get behind this acidic critique of New Labour, Cool Britannia and Tony blummin' Blair. Some say its a bit dated, and it's undeniably a product of its time - but then, that's its charm: it captures the zeitgeist and wrings its scaly neck. Nice bit of brass in there too.
Sex rating: 0/5, unless you fancy Tony Blair, in which case it gets a 1.

This is Hardcore: Or as one Last.fm user elegantly put it, "the sound of Jarvis Cocker fucking Britpop to death while Damon Albarn and the Gallagher brothers look on in horror." And what a sleazy, sticky, smoke-stained sound it is.
Sex rating: 5/5. Impossible to pick out just one line: the song is dripping with sex - just desperate, depressing and mostly figurative hate-sex.

O.U (Gone, Gone): Probably the closest Pulp ever came to a conventional pop song: short, sweet and stupidly catchy.
Sex rating: 1/5. "He needed her undressed" is exceptionally tame by Pulp standards.

I Spy: A song that seethes with class-hate, jealousy and the delectable nectar of vengeance. The venom is so palpable you can taste it; the menace so real that it scared the shit out of Luther Vandross when he shared the bill on Jools Holland. So vicious and sinister. So demented and pissed off. So immensely, wickedly delicious, it might even be my favourite Pulp song. God only knows what that says about me.
Sex rating: Anywhere between 0/5 - 5/5, depending on your class status, I guess.

Pink Glove: A charming little ditty about discovering your ex is into leather now, it has so much more heart than it should.
Sex rating: 4/5 for the general subject matter and melodic grunting. If they'd stuck around (any) longer they could have been the band to popularise harmonised moaning - and not in the Smithsian sense.

Mis-Shapes: A rallying cry to the mis-shapes and the misfits, the losers and the nerds, the geeks, the fat one, the "tramp", the boy who got sent to school in a jumper three sizes too big. One for anyone who's ever been laughed at, taunted or slapped around the head by some knob who thought he had it all worked out, when he couldn't even work out his maths. One for all those who are still slightly bitter, and not even ashamed of it. One for us.
Sex rating: 0/5, unless the thought of overthrowing a load of chavs turns you on. On second thought...

Bad Cover Version: It's a bit Christmassy, a bit anthemic and a lot sad. It does make me cry a little, as anything remotely poignant is wont to do.
Sex rating: 1/5. It's just too sad to be sexy.

Common People: Obviously.
Sex rating: 3/5. For all of its class anthem pretensions, it's essentially just a song about somebody wanting a shag, isn't it?

Great Cure Songs (with wanky captions)

Bestival is over! Here's a playlist. The "hits" have (mostly) been omitted in favour of album tracks and B-sides, because i) I'm a snob and ii) I'm sort of trying to convert the unenlightened, and if they've not liked Boys Don't Cry for the last twenty years, they ain't likely to change now. The rest of you are welcome to share your opinions - unless, of course, you went to Bestival.

The Playlist (#2):

Breathe. Gorgeous.

Sugar Girl. Also gorgeous.

Plainsong. In which Robert perfects the formula for The Perfect Song, multiplies it by a million and makes a recording of what happens.

A Letter to Elise. 75% of why the Wish album is underrated. As in; it's so good it even atones for Wendy Time.

Pictures of You, Robert being lovely and melancholic over eight minutes (not five) of lovely melancholia. (It's late, shush).

2 Late. Not actually a Field Mice cover, though you'd be forgiven for thinking so for all the beatific jangly bliss.

Apart. For the chemists out there, this represents the other 25% of Wish's allure (and 100% of its woe).

Catch. Though I love it and regard it as one of the Cure's finest pop songs, I've partially included this for the video, which produces in me an inexorable desire to touch Robert's hair.

Underneath the Stars. From 2008's 4.13 Dream. Yep, they've still got it.

One Hundred Years. Well it wouldn't be complete without the mandatory dose of nihilism.

Shit Cure Songs

Because the Cure are at Bestival and I'm not, I've compiled a Youtube playlist of their worst songs. The idea is that we pretend that they're always this bad and therefore won't even care that we're not there, pissed in a field, clad in fetching onesies and partying to the best bits of Galore.

However, as I recently tweeted, the Cure have the unique distinction of being sort of adorable even when they're really bad, so no-one will judge you for secretly loving these songs (just as long as you kind of hate them too.)

The Playlist:

Foxy Lady. Vocals by Lol Tolhurst: drummer, keyboardist and generally belligerent gentleman. Disillusionment by Robert Smith. If you listen, you can hear Robert going "no Lol, no" at the beginning, which essentially tells you all you need to know about this one.

The Weedy Burton. Tom's favourite Cure song. At my wit's end here, seriously.

It's Over. The sound of Robert sitting on the loo and shitting out the worst bits of the 80s.

Fight. According to certain Youtubers, this has stopped them from going over the edge so I probably shouldn't mock it. I just think it's crap and enormously lacking in subtlety, melody and the general art of being listenable.* That's all.
*the internet says it's a word so a word it must be.

Club America. Wild Mood Swings is the Cure's worst album, and this is its nadir. It's just rubbish. I don't know what else there is to say, so I'm just going to whimper inaudibly.

Just Say Yes. In fairness, the awfulness of the song pales in comparison to the terrifying video. On the plus side, it's warming to know that they have more than one use for their groupies.

Wrong Number. Fun fact: if you recite the spoken word bit to cold callers down the phone, they never ring again. Trust me, I would know.

Never Enough, or as it is also known, "what happens when Robert goes, 'well hey we just wrote one of the most beautiful albums of all time (Disintegration) but general excellence is never enough for me, so let's go and write the shittest thing we're capable of right now." No, Robert. No.

Screw. An unsightly whitehead on an otherwise beautiful face, and the sort of song I imagine you put together after finally mastering Smoke on the Water, when you're making the transition into writing your own material. The problem is, at this point the Cure had Faith, Pornography and the preceding eight songs of the Head on the Door behind them and I... well... I just don't understand.

When Bestival is over I'll make a similar playlist of their best stuff, because I'm secretly quite nice and also 'cause I'm irrationally afraid Robert will read this and whinge about it/entitlement generally in his next interview (eta: March 2017).